Calling all Elmers

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Greebe

Joined
Aug 2, 2009
Messages
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I have an old Kenwood TS-820S that I never put to use. I just have my Tech license and would like to just set up a simple antenna for listening only right now. At some point I would like to set it up to use 10m CW, Phone, and CW on 40m and maybe 80m.

Any help for a simple wire antenna to listen? As long as I am not transmitting it doesn't really matter much if it is matched to frequency does it. Just any random long wire?

Thanks
Greebe
 
For listening, sure, a long wire will work - but not that great. Depends on what you want to hear - and if you are going to the work of putting an antenna up, why not transmit on it too?! :) A dipole for 15M is small and easy - get it 30 feet off the ground or so and you will work the world. Remember 468/f = length of dipole total, divide in half, and connect coax center to one half, coax shield to the other, and voila! Simple dipole. Get the feedpoint up as high as you can and if the ends droop that's ok (Inverted vee).
 
I am no longer active, but know guys who live in areas where they can't have a tower or other visible antennas. One of them hooked a length of ladder line to his gutters.
I was at his house a few times and he was talking to friend in Germany. Of course, he had some pretty good equipment and fed the gutter through a tuner.

Just for listening, you could try a long wire. A cheap tuner would help. You can get a QRP kit for less than $20, but I would not transmit more than 5 W.

As kinzli said, a 15M dipole 30 feet off the ground would be great. Unfortunately, 30 feet off the ground is not possible for a lot of folks. I used a multi-band
vertical for over 10 years and talked all over the world on it with 100 watts.

Why don't you get a general license? It's easy since CW is no longer required.
 
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As UffDa said, you have many options. Just depends on what you want to do. If you are in an area that antennas are taboo, then a stealth run of #18 or 20 wire into a tree will be nearly invisible and will still work fine. You could probably find a used MFJ or similar antenna tuner that would work just fine for what you're asking for. In that case, you could just connect the long wire to one side of the tuner, and connect the ground side to some wires laid on the ground as a make-shift counterpoise. You could transmit through this. If the wire goes mostly vertical, it will work well as both a transmit and receive antenna. If you want to use it on 10M, then it only needs to be about 1/4 wave long - about 7 or 8 feet. Make it a little longer for 15 or 20M, and longer yet for 40/80M. For 80m, 1/4 wave is about 66 feet, and that would be a great length for 80m but might not be realistic at your location, not sure. If all you can do is a long wire, then get as much wire as high off the ground as you can. Counterpoise still applies.

Some folks also put wires in their attic if stealth is key, or use their gutters as UffDa said, or any number of other options (flagpoles, etc.).

And I'd agree, get up to General class (or Extra) and have many more options. Its relatively easy and the payoff is good.

PM or email me if you like - ham radio is a big part of my life, in fact if you get on the air soon we can have a QSO from a few interesting spots :)
 
Thanks everyone. I should probably get my General, but haven't yet because I have found the Tech license to be boring. Not much happening locally. This is where HF might be more fun. Maybe I will start looking around to where I can upgrade my license. I bought this Kenwood TS-820S to get on 10m and work on my CW. However I think I would have fun if I could get on the other bands.

I live out in the country where I could put up any antenna I want as long as it is in my budget. The budget is the issue as I am building a house and I am trying to not spend unnecessary money on things so I can get the house done sooner. This is where a simple dipole would be nice. I am also interested in an endfed antenna because it would be easier to set up temporarily and take down. I can't have anything permanent as the house is not finished and I do not want to constantly work around it.

This is part of why I was just thinking about hooking up a single wire for just listening.

Thanks
Greebe
 
It depends on the area . Some 2M is dead , others a bit active others quite active .But when you get General or better Extra Class you can do lots of things .Bouncing signals off meteor tails, Aurora . All challenging !
Other things are available and of these most work with 2M.I've been working as a radio operator for car rallies , putting together interest in radio and cars !There are rally events in the upper midwest They ALWAYS need radio operators !! check www.specialstage.com. Other types of events use radio operators ,check with your state radio people.
 
Greebe, if you have lots of space and no neighbors, and hopefully a few trees, you can very very easily build a dipole for 10M or any other band and throw it up for less than $10. The most costly thing is going to be coax to get from the antenna to the radio but at 10M you can use RG8X or even RG58 which is dirt-cheap. Get the dipole up as high as possible. They radiate off the broad side of the antenna. If you can get a 10M dipole up 40 or 50 feet it'll work great. For 40M, try to get it up 70 feet or higher for best results. They are cheap and easy and they do work very well for what they are. Remember 468/f for the total length of the dipole (split that in half for each leg), and then get it in the air - you may have to trim it a bit to get the SWR to be low (shoot for 1.5:1 or less). It'll listen well too. Including the trip to Home Depot to buy some wire, I bet you could have the antenna done and up in an hour :)

See ya on the bands...
 
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